She hasn’t exactly had a groundbreaking cover of Vogue since failing to impress on both Vogue Turkey and Vogue Korea. Now, Vogue Thailand tries its hand at photographing Suki Waterhouse and assigns her the all-important cover for September 2015. The regular face and brand ambassador of Burberry strikes a pose with photographer Marcin Tyszka, delivering us a close-up cover shot as she stares down the lens. The 23-year-old serves up some good hair and we would expect no less after Suki was recently announced as a brand ambassador of Redken.

A photo posted by voguethailand (@voguethailand) on Aug 27, 2015 at 12:46am PDT

But according to our forum members, Suki’s hair is far from inspiring. “That looks like a cheap wig,” slammed Wintergreen.

“Messy. What’s with the pose? It looks like Suki’s trying to get a bite of her hair. Never really got her appeal either,” added jescajade.

MON certainly wasn’t a fan and went so far as to state, “Probably the worst year for September covers and this is not an exception. White text on that hair? Really? The fashion issue also need not be mentioned because every Vogue issue is a fashion issue.”

Also disappointed was KissMiss, commenting, “Potentially the funniest cover ever. What’s with her mouth? Was she yawning, they snapped it and then the camera ran out of memory?”

“It would have been better if she wasn’t looking at the camera. She really can’t model to save her life. Who decided to put the text in these colors? You can barely see it because of her hair. Suki can’t do close-ups,” said a horrified Aizanara.

Are you impressed by Vogue Thailand’s seemingly best efforts this month? Sound off in our thread here.

Computers are now claiming to do what Tyra Banks was never able to: predict which fresh faces will become top models. Jaehyuk Park and a group of researchers at the Indiana University in Bloomington have used a machine-learning algorithm to determine which models are more likely to be fashion’s next big stars.

So, how did they manage to do it? The group gathered data of 431 female models, including how many runways each had appeared on, their number of Instagram followers and likes, as well as measurements and the agencies with which they may or may not be signed. What they found was quite telling. “Various factors positively correlate with runway popularity—for example, tall models are more popular and each additional centimeter of height more than doubles their chances of walking a runway,” an article in Technology Review explains. “Being on the books of a top agency is an even more important factor which increases the chances of appearing on a runway by a factor of ten. Rather predictably, factors such as larger dress, hips, and shoe size all negatively correlate with success while waist size is not correlated either way. Social media turns out to be important too but not always in obvious ways. More comments on an Instagram account correlates with higher chances of walking a runway. But strangely, having more ‘likes’ reduces the chances by around 10 percent.”

After getting all this information, the team took things a step further and used the machine-learning algorithm to help figure out which models we would be most likely to see on future runways, taking a sample of 15 models. “The best algorithm correctly identified six of the eight models who would go on to become popular on the runway. Our framework successfully predicts most of the new popular models who appeared in 2015.”

But before you get too excited, there are some problems with the findings. They don’t take into account that some runway appearances are more coveted than others, though it did find that having a strong Instagram following seems to be a more important factor in the success of a model than being at a top agency.

Still, this provides interesting insight into what a top model makes and further proves the idea that if you want to be a successful model these days, you’ve got to make sure your Instagram account is on point.

“Whoa, how many times has she been featured now? It feels like every year! Justine [Picardie] is really recycling the cover stars, hard!” noticed Miss Dalloway, remembering Michelle’s covers from August 2013 and August 2014.

“Hmm.. her again? Just by the looks of the preview, it feels like I’m to expect a Town & Country cover,” added MON.

Also underwhelmed was tigerrogue, sarcastically ranting, “Country house style, what a new direction for both the cover star and the magazine.”

“I’m excited about the swan in the corner though. Finally a new cover star!” laughed A.D.C, returning to the thread soon after to say, “The girl can’t smize to save her life, can she?”

Benn98 wasn’t a fan of the styling. “I thought the newsstand cover would at least feature a different look. I don’t like this Ralph Lauren dress, it’s too bland. Reminds me of oatmeal,” he disappointingly noted.

“Ouch. She looks bored as hell on that newsstand cover,” acknowledged honeycombchild.

See what else Bazaar‘s October 2015 issue has to offer and join the conversation here.

Fashion can’t seem to get enough of Lucky Blue Smith, the boy with the ice blue eyes that has captured the hearts of teenage girls the world over. The 17-year-old model keeps racking up the campaigns and as it’s inevitable that we will continue to see more of him, the kind folks at i-D put together a little video to help us get to know him that much better. The A-Z of Lucky Blue Smith is a combination of facts, features and, um, random phrases and words (hey, there’s no other way to describe it) from the model which sum up his life.

From his band The Atomics to his penchant for zoning out, the video is Mr. Lucky Blue in a nutshell. The video is set to the tune of the model banging away on a drum set, showcasing that he has more talents than just being really, really, ridiculously good looking.

But even with Barbie’s new look, you haven’t seen her like this. Instagram account @socalitybarbie shows another side of the iconic doll one that is more hipster than high fashion. The satirical account shows Barbie, clad in a beanie hat, glasses with perfectly messy hair taking in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, hiking, curling up in blankets on the beach, camping and drinking coffee – lots of it.

Socality Barbie’s anonymous creator explained to Wired that the well-curated account was her way of making fun of the many #socality and #liveauthentic tagged images flooding her timeline, as a comment as to how lame the trend really is. “People were all taking the same pictures in the same places and using the same captions. I couldn’t tell any of their pictures apart so I thought, ‘What better way to make my point than with a mass-produced doll?'” No one can live a life as perfect as they make it seem on Instagram, after all – unless you’re a plastic toy with pretty hair, of course. (more…)